The Opposite of Continuity is... Posted by Patrick Barry

Shadow Government vexes me.  Their posts are thought-provoking, if rarely amenable to my progressive disposition.  But one odd trend that I've noticed is their frequent attempts to put the Obama administration's foreign policies on the same trajectory as their Bush predecessors.  Seriously Peter Feaver, what unholy force compelled you to turn a diverting meditation on grand strategy into an incongrous argument for why Obama is just like Bush, but with fancier rhetoric?

Such students would be well-equipped to subject the Sanger review of Obama's grand strategy to some critical scrutiny of its own. Such students would ask Sanger to consider the numerous continuities in the Obama foreign policy thus far, such as in terrorism policies or Iraq -- continuities that are obscured to the casual observer because of the changed rhetoric but do not fool those who have eyes to see. The students would also press Sanger to distinguish more carefully between the optics and the operations of Obama's grand strategy.

I guess I'm not one of "such students," because I just don't seeing the continuities.  On terrorism, there are indeed similarities between Obama and Bush, but those similarities have to be considered against an overall Obama administration world-view that seems to have done away with terrorism as a foundational element of U.S. strategy.  Anyone who argues that getting rid of the Global War on Terror is just a rhetorical shift has a peculiar understanding of not just rhetoric, but terrorism, and strategy as well. 

Turning to Iraq, it's worth asking how the Obama policy came to so closely resemble the Bush approach.  Could it be that Obama thought of it first? The reality is that Obama was calling for timed withdrawal from Iraq long before the Bush team, facing opposition from both Iraqis and broad swaths of the American public, finally accepted limits on a war they had long preffered to view as limitless.  Again, if the Bush administration made Iraq the crucible for their grand strategy, and the Obama administration explicitly rejects that view, where are the strategic continuities?  

What's so ironic about Feaver's attempts to connect the concept grand strategy to chimerical resemblances between Bush and Obama is that the David Sanger piece on which Feaver bases his discussion is focused on nonproliferation.  Maybe I'm not grasping the continuities, but that seems like an area where there the contrast between two administrations could not be any more profound.

Comments

[Don Bacon]

On terrorism, there are indeed similarities between Obama and Bush, but those similarities have to be considered against an overall Obama administration world-view that seems to have done away with terrorism as a foundational element of U.S. strategy.

I guess you missed Obama's speech in Turkey:
"Make no mistake, though: Iraq, Turkey, and the United States face a common threat from terrorism. . .As President, and as a NATO ally, I pledge that you will have our support against the terrorist activities of the PKK or anyone else. . .The world has come too far to let this region backslide, and to let al Qaeda terrorists plot further attacks. That’s why we are committed to a more focused effort to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda."
http://allthatnatters.com/2009/04/06/transcript-president-barack-obama-speech-to-turkish-parliament-april-6/

his AfPak speech:
"So let me be clear. Al Qaida and its allies, the terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks are in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that Al Qaida is actively planning attacks on the United States homeland from its safe haven in Pakistan. And if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban or allows Al Qaida to go unchallenged, that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can. . . .The safety of people around the world is at stake. For the Afghan people, the return to Taliban rule would condemn their country to brutal governance, international isolation, a paralyzed economy, and the denial of basic human rights to the Afghan people, especially, women and girls."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/27/AR2009032700891.html

and his inaugural speech
"We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/20/obama.politics/index.html

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